Jasper's POV

The five of us hadn't found anything yet. We had to be close to the border between Alberta and Montana. We were walking a dirt road towards a bridge. We planned to cross the river and continue searching in that direction.

I walked in the front of the group while Ahren kept up the back.

The bridge was only a couple hundred feet ahead of us now. As I looked down the side of it, I spotted something weird. I squinted my eyes as I tried to see what it was.

"Jasper, do you see that?" Ahren asks.

I nod, as I realize what it is.

A person was hanging from the bottom of the bridge, about to fall off. It looked like they were being attacked by the dead from on top of the bridge.

I take off running for the bridge. Ahren starts shouting at me but I keep running for the bridge. I can hear that the group is farther behind me but they're following.

I could save this person from falling into the raging river below if I ran fast enough. There wasn't time to stop and talk about it as a group. Their life, unknowingly to them, was in my hands.

I get onto the bridge and see two dead ones laying by a hole in the bridge.

I pull my knife out and hurry to attack them.

I stab the first dead one, my knife driving easily into its skull and sliding right out. The second one turns its head towards me but I stomp my foot onto the back of its neck and bend over, stabbing it in the skull.

I slide my knife into its sheath and fall to my knees, reaching an arm through the hole in the bridge floor. I take hold of an arm of the man dangling from the bridge. My other hand grabs a nearby pole on top of the bridge to stable myself.

"Grab on." I tell him.

His arm latches onto mine and I start to pull him up. My shoulder twists as I strain to pull the man's full body weight with one arm while I hold onto the bridge with my other.

I pull his body to the floor of the bridge and he grabs on with one hand and continues to hold my arm.

Ahren suddenly drops down beside me, grabbing the man's other hand and helping me pull him up. The man crawls onto the bridge, out of breath.

As the strain on my arm releases, my body tenses up and a sharp pain shoots through my arm. I collapse on the bridge and Ahren hurries beside me. "Jasper, what's wrong?!"

"My shoulder." I hiss through clenched teeth.

Ahren tries to move it but when I start shouting in pain, he stops.

The man we'd pulled off the bridge speaks up. "It might be dislocated."

Ahren and I both look at him.

As he and Ahren make eye contact, his face changes.

"Holy shit." Ahren whispers, barely audible.

"Ahren?"

I look confusedly between Ahren and the new guy. What is going on?

"Graham?"

Graham. A drunken tale Sasha had told me begins to spin itself in my mind. She'd told me Graham was dead. Yet, here he was. Right in front of me.

I'm pulled from my thoughts as a sharp shoot of pain goes through my shoulder and I groan.

Ahren quickly turns back to me. "Stay still, we're gonna get out of here."

Ahren looks up and mutters a cuss under his breath.

"What can I do?" Graham asks.

"Cover us, we've gotta get to the side of the bridge where the rest of our group is." Ahren tells him.

He nods, pulling a handgun gun out and turning off the safety.

Ahren places a hand under my shoulder and helps me stand up. I try not to writhe from the pain as I stand.

"You alright?" Ahren asks. I nod, "This is nothing to compared to when I was shot in the leg."

He chuckles. "Good, keep thinking that way."

We make it back to the others on the side of the bridge and find a building to hole up in for some time.

I lay down on a table and Graham pulls my arm over the side. He places a half-empty trash bag in my arm and tells me to hold it.

I hiss as I hold the weight of the bag over the side of the table. He slowly starts pushing my arm backward. My breathing labors and I tighten my grip on the bag. He pushes my arm up until an unsettling series of cracks are heard. There's an instant release in pressure on my shoulder.

"It's gonna hurt but at least it's in the right spot now." Graham tells me. "I'd lay there for a bit, you don't want to put any strain on it yet."

He was certainly right about it hurting but I ignored him and sat up anyways.

He moves his hands towards me, trying to push me back down. "Woah, slow down there buddy. You seriously don't wanna-"

"I'm fine." I snapped, shoving his hands out of the way.

Ahren comes between us. "Sorry, it takes him a bit to warm up to people." He tells Graham. Then he turns to me. "Jasper, you really should lay down."

I knew they were right and I knew that if Sasha were here she would say the same thing. For that reason and that reason only, at least that's what I told myself, I lied back down on the table.

Ahren pats my right shoulder, the one I hadn't dislocated. "We'll be on the move soon enough. Just rest while you can."

He and Graham sit down together a few feet away from my table. I stared blankly at the ceiling and listened to their conversation.

"Sasha... is she... alive?" Graham asks.

"She's alive. There have been a few close calls, but she's still alive."

"And Cat?"

"She... didn't make it."

"What happened?"

Images of her body falling limply to the ground flash in my mind. The bullet leaving my gun and piercing directly between her eyes...

"She just didn't make it..."

"What about Ahri?"

"Ahri's still alive, she's doing really well honestly. After losing Cat and just living through this shit world... She's learned how to survive pretty well."

There's a moment of silence between them.

Ahren speaks up. "What the hell happened to you? We all thought you were dead."

"I probably should be." Graham answers.

He was supposed to be dead. But here he was, asking about my girlfriend. Well, sort of girlfriend... I guess we hadn't really made anything official before I left...

But I have a feeling she'd be mine if I asked.

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A/N: I'm so happy to finally be updating again! If you guys aren't following me and didn't see the message I put on my board, I will now be updating weekly on Thursdays. So, be ready for a new chapter every Thursday :) I hope you guys liked seeing this scene from Jasper's POV when he found Graham... Remember to vote, comment, and follow me for important NEWS!

~Xx THΔT RΣDΠΣCҜ

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